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Ion netbook comparison

12-06-2009, 10:12 AM

Seeing as there are hardly any congo (AMD Neo/ Radeon) netbooks presently available, I'm now looking at Ion based netbooks. There are quite a few available now but I've not been able to find a side-by-side (comprehensive) comparison of all the ones currently available. In fact it doesn't really need to be that comprehensive as I'm only really bothered about good video-out (at least HMDI + pref. VGA out too), good battery life and the ability to upgrade the RAM beyond 1GB.

I'm hoping Michael will spot this post and do a Linux-centric comparison of the Ion based netbooks (if he has access to a number of them) otherwise I'd be quite happy with a Windows-based comparative round-up. Anyone found such a thing or have any recommendations for Ion based netbooks? I'm wondering how the battery life of such a machine stands up to an Intel IGP netbook with HDMI?

I doubt there is a Intel IGP netbook with HDMI today, next year it will change. I hope psb support will be fine till then as it will be definitely powervr based begining with Atom N450. Just found this:

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As you prob know from my previous thread, ideally I'd be able to get a 10" netbook with Radeon gfx and HDMI. As you say, I know there are Intel laptops with HDMI out but there doesn't seem to be a netbook with 'proper' (ie non-GMA500) Intel gfx chipset that is well supported by xorg (yet). Even when GMA500 is fully supported under Linux I do not expect it will compete with the ion or congo (but I'd love to be proved wrong). God knows how long it would take to see an open source driver for the PowerVR going off nouveau!

Next year will be a different story no doubt for Intel and ATI HDMI on netbooks but if you want decent HD playback or 3D on a netbook right now, ion seems to be the only real choice. Two that I like the look of are the Asus 10n or the cheaper and not quite as swish HP/Compaq Mini 311 - I would love to find out how they compare on battery life under Linux.

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If you want to buy it as xmas present now i would also consider ion netbook - but only with a 1366x768 res on at least 11". You should find reviews in the net for Win, battery life should not be that different to Linux.